UBS posts second consecutive quarterly loss

Investment bank UBS posted its second consecutive quarterly loss on Tuesday as costs related to integrating its fallen rival Credit Suisse weighed on the group.

UBS reported a net loss attributable to shareholders of $279.0m for the quarter, better than the $372.0m expected by analysts. For the fourth quarter, underlying operating pre-tax profits came in at $592.0m, below internal expectations for a reading of $762.0m.

Total group revenues were $10.86bn, down from $11.7bn in the third quarter.

The Swiss bank announced that it would recommence share buybacks worth up to $1.0bn in the second half of 2024 and also plans to propose a dividend per share of $0.70, up 27% year-on-year.

"I'm very pleased that, on an underlying basis, we saw actually good profitability, and we saw also good momentum with clients. We had $22.0bn of inflows in net new assets and also saw very good inflows in deposits across both wealth management and the personal and corporate banking, we have managed down exposure in non-core and legacy," said chief executive Sergio Ermotti.

"We also made further improvements in our targets to deliver cost savings by achieving a $4.0bn exit rate in cost savings in 2023, so all that contributed to good results, and this gives us the confidence to now tackle the next phase of our restructuring and integration."

As of 0915 GMT, UBS shares were down 2.53% at CHF 25.06 each.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com